HER SEARCH FOR
ACCOUNTABILITY

Mother of victim in Benghazi attack demands answers amid grief

Perched on a sofa in the modest Clairemont home where she has lived for more than three decades, Pat Smith monitors hour after hour of television in search of news about the Sept. 11 Benghazi terrorist attack that killed her son, State Department information officer Sean Smith.

“There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t cried over this,” said Smith, 73. “My country blew it, and they won’t tell me why.”

When Smith isn’t scanning the news, she is often part of it, delivering tear-filled statements of outrage over the killing of her only child and three other Americans. She’s been featured in print stories and on numerous TV and radio shows, ranging from CNN to more-frequent appearances on Fox News programs.

Her outspoken criticism of the State Department and the Obama administration has catapulted the part-time bookkeeper and self-described former hippie into the national dialogue about Benghazi.

“I wasn’t looking for my 15 minutes of fame. I’m not a political person at all — I’m just angry,” Smith said, adding that she has no party affiliation.

Her anger centers on insufficient security at the U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya where the assault occurred last year, along with the administration’s massaging of talking points that downplay the nature of the terrorist incident. That wrath was evident in a comment she made during a Mother’s Day appearance on the “Huckabee” show on Fox News.

“I interrupted (Mike Huckabee) to wish Hillary a happy Mother’s Day,” Smith said of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who held the post when her son died from smoke inhalation as dozens of al-Qaeda-linked militants overran the compound. “She’s got her child. I don’t have mine, and I blame her because it was her department.”

Smith’s persistent search for accountability has endeared her to conservative commentators who view the Benghazi incident as a scandal. For example, Sean Hannity of Fox News has devoted much of his daily TV and radio shows to the issue. Smith, he said, is an important voice in the story.

“She’s one of the ones who’s been impacted the most,” he said Friday. “The families haven’t gotten answers, and I think she has a right to know the full story more than any of the rest of us, especially after eight months.”

‘I’ve heard nothing’

Well-kept roses line the walkway of Smith’s home, and an aging American flag she has flown for years is being replaced by one flown over the U.S. Capitol and given to her by the office of Rep. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego.

A little more than a week ago, Smith was on Capitol Hill seated among the widows, children and parents of the four men killed in Benghazi. They sat in the front row of a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing that featured three State Department diplomats delivering dramatic and at times tearful testimony about the attack, whose other victims were Ambassador Christopher Stevens and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods of Imperial Beach and Glen Doherty of Encinitas.